“Well, it’s… I’d love to…” Hamza looked down at the desktop, composing himself, then rallied. “Sadly not, sir. We felt that giving chase was the priority, so the evidence was still in the caravan.”
“The caravan that was on fire?” Logan asked. “The caravan that I’m guessing burned down?”
“Uh… aye, sir. Uniform and a couple of local fire volunteers are dealing with it now,” Hamza said. “As soon as we get the all-clear, we’re going to go and see what we can recover.”
“And how much paper do you think you’re likely to ‘recover’ from the burned-out wreckage, do you think? How much of one of the most notoriously flammable substances on Earth do you think you’ll be able to salvage?”
“Um… Probably not much, sir,” Hamza admitted.
“No. I agree. Probably not much. Probably not much at all.” His voice became fainter as he lowered the radio and muttered something that wasn’t meant for their ears.
The next voice that emerged from the speaker was Sinead’s.
“Uh, hi. The boss is, um… taking a moment,” she said as, in the background, they all heard a brief outburst of colourful language. “Can you guys do us a favour? We don’t want to drive back on that road tonight, only to have to do it again tomorrow to meet that MSP.”
“You’re not coming back?” asked Tyler. “But I got uth a double room at a B&B.”
There was a pause before Sinead replied. “What’s wrong with your voice?”
“Got thtung in the fathe by a load of nettleth,” Tyler explained.
They all heard Logan’s voice in the background again. “Wait, what did he say?”
“He got stung in the face by a load of nettles,” Sinead said.
There was another moment of silence, and then a snort. “Christ, that might be worth driving back to see,” Logan said, then the thought of the road brought him to his senses. “Actually, no. No, not even that’s worth that drive.”
“Will you see if you can find us somewhere? We’re still at the lighthouse,” Sinead said. “Doesn’t have to be fancy, but it needs to take dogs.”
“And the closer, the better,” Logan added.
“I’ll get right on that, bothh,” Tyler said, mangling the word ‘boss’ beyond all recognition. He was as eager as ever to win the DCI’s approval, and even more so given tonight’s cock-up. “I won’t let you down.”
They didn’t recognise the house in the dark. They’d only glimpsed it in passing the first time around, and it wasn’t until the elderly woman yanked open the door, revealing herself in a faded full-length nightdress, that Logan realised whose house Tyler had sent them to.
“Bleedin’ Nora!” spat Kathryn Chegwin, looking them both up and down. “If I knew it was the filth, I never would’ve taken that fucking booking.”
Logan groaned. “Jesus Christ, Tyler,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose, “You have got to be bloody kidding me.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The rooms were decent enough, although on the small side. At a guess, they had last been decorated in the late nineteen-forties, and while the decor was still relatively fresh-looking, the style very much was not.
The beds had been singles—neither room large enough to accommodate anything larger—but while the mattresses had been thick, solid things that would likely take a team of men to lift, they’d been comfortable, all the same.
Taggart had been made to sleep in the kitchen. For hygiene purposes, Kathryn had said, although Logan couldn’t help but feel this was less hygienic than if the dog had slept in one of the bedrooms. Or literally anywhere else in the house, for that matter.
Still, they were guests, and she was the host, and she made it very clear that under this roof, her word was law.
She had, with some persuasion, allowed Logan to make a phone call from the landline in the morning. Shona had answered on the third ring, and while he would have loved to go over the post-mortem results with her, the way Kathryn hung over him tapping at her watch was enough to put him off the idea.
He arranged to give her a call when he was either back at the station, or somewhere with a phone signal, and said his goodbyes.
“How’s she doing?” Sinead asked when Logan returned to the dining room.
The table had space for six people, but only two places had been set for breakfast. Kathryn returned to the kitchen while Logan took his seat and reached for a slice of toast that could best be described as ‘well-fired.’